Where Do We Go From Here?

So here's the question of the day for me now that I've decided to start blogging again. Where do we go from here?

Of course it wouldn't be long before I got a Buffy reference in here.

Because I'll admit, I started doing this again with that post on Monday without any sort of plan other than getting that first post out there. So what to do next? A large focus of my blog in the past was as a reviewer. I reviewed every book I read. I spotlighted comics I really enjoyed, comic pages that really struck me. I passed judgment on every new TV show I watched each fall season and commented on whether they were worth sticking with (if I still did that, boy would I have some harsh words for you, Manifest and New Amsterdam...). I did the whole movie reviewer thing as well. Do I want to pick up with all that again?

I suppose the real question, the real essence of "where do we go from here" is really "what kind of writer do I want to be?"

Do I want to go back to being a reviewer? Lord knows I love letting the world know when something sucks almost as much as I love shouting from the rooftops the praise of everything I come across that I absolutely love (Black Panther, A Star is Born, and Anna and the Apocalypse were the three best movies of 2018, by the way. Fight me.) I might want to go back to that, but maybe not hold myself to it as stringently as I used to. I don't have to review every book I read, every show I watch, etc... I can stick to just the ones that inspire something in me enough to write about them. And I might want to get back into the movie reviewing thing; I enjoyed it when I was doing it for Film-Arcade before so it might be worth finding a way to take another stab at it, see if it leads so something that pays. I'm open to any leads on something like this, by the way. Just throwing that out there.

Or do I want to be less of a reviewer and more of a creator this time around. I need to write more. More fiction, especially. I have so many ideas and have wasted so much time. I could go back to my Biggs and Wedge series, as much as it's in need of serious retooling. Or I could revisit the dark Arthurian saga I started a few years ago. Or finally get started on the almost Lovecraftian idea I've had kicking around in my head for awhile now. Any sugesstions or preferences? I just need to find more time to write, and more time to read, as reading is the ingredient that fuels the motor of writing. And clearly I need to read a lot more, because that was a terrible analogy.

I could be more of a real life blogger, as well... just muse about my life, rant and rave about what's going on in the world, my experiences and opinions... and probably alienate 90% of the people I know! Especially if I start talking about work...

Or, the more likely option, all of the above. Like I said, I have no plan, which isn't easy for someone like me. I like plans and routines and agendas and all the other words you can think of. Seat of the pants is not my style. I'm clearly open to ideas (and collaborations, even). I'm just starting to reopen the gates of my creativity, so to speak, I guess I'll just sit and wait to see what pours out.

The Many Worlds Theory: Schrödinger's Blogger

The Many Worlds Theory. In a nutshell, it's just that... a theory that our universe is just one in a multiverse comprised of infinite differing universes, that every different outcome possible for a decision someone makes results in a different universe for each outcome. We only see the universe we live in as a result of those decisions, but not the alternate ones that spin out of the different possible choices. Sort of like Schrödinger's cat, who, unseen in a box, was both alive AND dead because the observer had no idea which was true. Or, for a more applicable example, Schrodinger's blogger; we live in a universe where I stopped blogging over three years ago and have tentatively restarted today... but there's a universe out there where I never stopped, and maybe I'm a famous blogger now, or movie reviewer, or whatever spun out of those choices.

There might even be a reality where Vincent Van Gogh didn't cut his own ear off and give it to a girl he loved (whch totally isn't what happened, by the way; he cut his ear off in a fit of rage and depression after finding out his friend Paul Gauguin was moving back to Paris, he only gave it to a girl they both knew so she could pass it on to Gauguin!), but instead he snapped and started cutting off other people's ears instead. Who knows what possibilites there are in the multiverse?

This is all a bit esoteric, I know, but I'm going to spin it back to reality, trust me. And I do mean OUR reality.

You see, there's a reality where a girl I had a thing for seven years ago felt the same as me, and life unfolded completely differently for us both. The same could be said about a girl I had a thing for eleven years ago. Or eighteen years ago. Or twenty. Holy hell, when did I get this old? Anyway, according to this theory, there are worlds out there where I'm currently with each of those women. But that's not the point, because I wouldn't trade my current reality for any of those. The reality I'm in now has me married to the best person I've ever known, and I wouldn't trade that for anything. This is the best possible reality.

There's also a reality where I wasn't able to talk Marisa into adopting George after someone talked her out of it. And in that reality, we obviously never went to Petco, saw Smitty, and decided to adopt him. In that reality, Marisa and I have a lot more money, money that went unspent on vet bills and cat food and litter and so many more vet bills. But that's not the point. In that reality, our lives are far emptier without our little furballs, and I wouldn't trade that for anything. This is the best possible reality.

And for a more recent divergence, there's a reality out there were I never got diagnosed with IBS. A world where this condition hasn't made life pretty damn difficult, hasn't caused panic attacks, hasn't seen me have to ignore opportunities to go places. There's a world where all the detrimental aspects of this condition haven't had a negative affect on my career at my current job, cost me opportunities, cost me some of my reputation, caused me even more stress that just makes the condition worse, and so on and so forth in a vicious circle. And right about now, the rule of threes has you expecting another "but that's not the point" sentence... except in this case, that is the point. Because this isn't the best possible reality. What I've realized in musing over my career and the chances I'm getting and not getting is that I'm actually living in the worst possible reality.

I've become someone who coasts, who goes to work and goes home and goes to sleep and wakes up and goes to work and wash, rinse, repeat, over and over, day in, day out, year after year. I haven't written much of anything since my last blog post over three years ago except for yet another half-assed attempt at NaNoWriMo in 2016. I barely even read anymore.

In short, I've been living in a reality where I don't dream anymore.

But in the Many Worlds Theory, where every choice creates a new reality, it's never too late to make changes. All you have to do is choose... and I'm choosing to change, to dream again, to remake my reality/ Working on this blog, changing the design a bit, actually writing this post I've had on my mind for a few weeks now is just the beginning. I'll be trying to write again, but not holding myself to the same rules and deadlines I used to; more free writing, more flowing that. In short, more shit that might not make sense to anyone but me. But that's okay, because one of my biggest mistakes was always blogging for the sake of being read, and not just writing for the sake of writing., which is what I'm dedicating myself to doing now. I might fail. If I do that's okay, because this blog isn't the dream, it's just a step in correcting reality. I've decided that if I'm going to dream, I'm going to dream much bigger than just a blog.

What IS the dream, you may ask?

I'll tell you when we wake up in a reality where my dream and my reality are one and the same.

One Last Time

It's been a week of announcements for me. After turning 35 and enjoying a nice hotel suite party with close friends, I announced I'm probably not going hard for my birthday anymore. I was also very pleased to be able to announce that, after only being a full-time employee for only 8 months, I've received a promotion and a hefty raise at Ross. Seriously, I'm now making more money than I ever have before. Life is good. But it's time for one more announcement. So relax, have a drink with me, because...

Shootin' Straighter than a Stormtrooper is closing its doors.

I've been running this blog off and on for six years now, and fairly steadily on for the last four years or so. But the truth is, despite my efforts, it never really went where I wanted it to go, and lord knows it never really caught on with an audience or anything. In the last year or so, as I got a movie reviewing position at another site, it mostly became a place where I linked to my reviews on that site, or wrote book reviews, or, most recently, reviewed comic book art. But the truth is that the writing bug has left me lately. Not even Oscar season has inspired me to get on and write the usual posts I do about movies this time of year. Hell, I didn't even pick a best/worst movie of the year this time around (FYI, best was probably Creed, worst was probably Fantastic Four) and especially the thought of writing things mostly going unread. And if that's true of writing in general, it's especially true of reviewing. I dropped out of the two sites I was on involving movies, and I'm going to stick to just giving stars on Flixster or Goodreads for the foreseeable future.

I don't know if it's over forever; I'm not deleting the site so I can always go back to it. But at this point it feels like blogging is just a chore, and one not worth making time for. If I want to write, I can do it quietly, to and for myself, which is what this basically was anyway if you saw my view statistics. Maybe I'll come back someday, but I honestly doubt it. So, for one last time, if you were reading, thanks for reading.

Goodreads Book Review - Mockingjay

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins


Probably my least favorite book in the series, just because it lacks the few bits of comedy and other light touches the two previous novels had. Also, the focus on the love triangle bored me as I sort of hate both Gale and Peeta as characters. The biggest problem I had was the abruptness of the ending... or I suppose I should say the abruptness of the climax; the ending itself goes on and on. I also don't like Collins' reliance on starting chapters with Katniss waking up in hospital beds, unaware of what happened. It gets tired. That said, Katniss is still a great character who really benefits from first person narration, and with the exception of the two mentioned above I enjoy the supporting cast. The action scenes are inventive and entertaining as well. I wish this had been as good as the first two chapters, but it was still an enjoyable ending.


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Panel of the Week: 12/02/15

Marvel has been trying a lot of new things recently. They restarted all their series at #1 after an 8 month in-continuity gap to give readers a great jumping-on point for everything. As such, I've tried a lot of their new offerings. Some, like Karnak and Hercules, were surprisingly good. Others, like Totally Awesome Hulk, are ridiculous but have a good enough hook in there somewhere to make me want to see what happens next. And then there's the new volume of Daredevil, issue one of which was written by Charles Soule and pencilled by Ron Garney, in which the Man Without Fear is given a new enemy...

It's an Asian crime boss called Tenfingers. You know. Because he has ten fingers on each hand. Which really means he has twenty fingers, right, so wouldn't that be his name? I don't know. Apparently part of his thing is that his henchman are allowed to cut off one of their fingers and give it to him whenever they complete an assigned task. yeah, you read that write. They cut off their own fingers not as punishment but as reward. This is so mindnumbingly stupid I don't even want to type about it anymore, let alone read anymore about it.

The literal definition of "they can't all be winners" right here, folks.

Goodreads Book Review - Warheart

Warheart by Terry Goodkind

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


I remember when I started reading the Sword of Truth series. It was 2001 and I picked up Wizard's First Rule on a whim, and was immediately blown away by the fullness of the world, the richness of the characters, and the thrilling action. Fast-forward almost fifteen years to Warheart and I couldn't be more glad the series is over. For me, this series peaked at Faith of the Fallen and has gone downhill ever since. The lush world and full-bodied characters have been replaced by a simplistic, repetitive writing style that sees dialogue go on for pages at a time full of circular conversations where the lines could be said by anyone. No one has a distinct voice anymore. And for a book about a character called Warheart (a phrase, by the way, introduced almost as a throwaway line that is only saved from being a one-off by being used twice more, including a closing line that is easily one of the worst closing lines in the history of books), there is so little action it's unbelievable. It's basically a book about characters traveling back and forth to different places saying the same thing ad nauseam, followed by a ridiculously anticlimactic final confrontation. I'm giving Warheart one star for the one scene in the book that packed any sort of emotional punch for me, and out of loyalty and love for what used to be a great series.



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Panel of the Week: 11/25/15

Sometimes there isn't anything all that outstanding that pops out in a particular week's batch of books. When that happens, it never hurts to just go with a classic action shot, and that's what I did with the week in question. The panel from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 4 #2, by Brian Michael Bendis and Valerio Schiti, featured below is just a such a panel.

Overlook the idea that both the Thing and Shadowcat are on the Guardians of the Galaxy instead of their usual teams, that's just the changing ways of Marvel now. Regardless of the team, there's nothing more timeless and classic in the comics world than the Thing, a cosmic enemy, and the clock hitting Clobberin' Time.